Are You Sh*tting Me?: 1,004 Facts That Will Scare the Crap Out of You

by Cary McNeal

Blue Ice, Meteors, and Beaver Ass, Oh My!

The use of maggots to clean wounds has proven to be effective for patients who don't respond to traditional treatments.

The Icelandic dish hákarl is beheaded basking shark that is buried in the ground for six to 12 weeks to putrefy before it is eaten.

Used during the Dutch Revolt, rat torture involved trapping rodents under a bowl on a prisoner's stomach then heating the bowl's exterior so the animals would eat through the victim's flesh to try to escape.

The average person picks his nose five times every hour, occasionally eating what he picks.

The world is a scary place, and it gets scarier every day. From the creator of the bestselling 1,001 Facts That Will Scare The S#*t Out Of You comes this new collection of 1,004 (count 'em!) truly horrifying and horrifyingly true facts about the world around us.

From ancient medical practices to doomsday scenarios, to disgusting food from around the world and the entire terrifying state of Florida, the facts in Are You Sh*tting Me? are sure to entertain and disturb you at once. Unless of course you are already disturbed, in which case this is the book for you!

Genres: Nonfiction, Humor, Trivia, Adult

312 pages, Paperback

First published October 7, 2014

Reviews

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cary McNeal knows what scares you. And, what kills you. There are SO MANY WAYS to buy it, it's amazing that any of us live to a ripe, old age. With chapters titled Public Bathrooms, Amusement Park Accidents, and Florida, you'll be shakin' in your shoes every time you pick up this book.

It was a toss-up as to which chapter made me cringe more - Torture Devices or Disgusting Food from Around the World. Both of them had me wondering just what sort of mind devises a pear of anguish, OR kiviak, a Greenlandic Inuit dish which is made by stuffing the carcass of a seal with dead birds and burying it in the spring or summer. In the winter, the fermented meat is dug up and shared with friends and family. (Now that I think about it, this one could also be filed in the torture chapter.)

If, like me, you've got an inner 10-year-old boy who is fascinated by the gross, disgusting, and horrific, this book is for you.

[Fiore · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I found the facts to be entertaining I thought the accompanying commentary was unnecessary. Very AFV-esque.

[SheLove2Read · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was, to be honest, a waste of my time. I'm glad it was a free promo when I picked it up. There's really no "facts" in here that even remotely "scare the crap" out of me, or even startle me. Most of the "facts" are things we've all read in history or seen in a youtube video.

Examples:
"Midway through his reign, King George III began to show signs of insanity, including acute agitation, temper outbursts, and profane verbal tirades that went on for hours until the king would foam at the mouth."

"The use of maggots to clean wounds has proven to be effective for patients who don't respond to traditional treatments."

"Execution by boiling was used throughout Europe and Asia until the seventeenth century."

"Egyptian women used crocodile dung as a spermicide in the ancient past."

"The island of Tuvalu in the South Pacific is so small and remote that the biggest building is a three-story administration building."

Don't waste your money.

[Erikka · Rating 4 out of 5]

These books are fun. Depressing at times, but fun.

[Tricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

makes me want to live in a hovel....

[Dark Chocolate · Rating 3 out of 5]

"A cockroach can live two weeks without water and almost a month without food. Just like Kate Moss."

A book where you can find that you are a nimphomaniac for eating too much chocolate, reading novels and having impure thoughts or that you can die from too much nose-picking unless your doctor's bad handwriting doesn't kill you first.

While there are some pretty good facts and really funny introductions to each chapter, there are also facts that are just not for this book. I mean, branches or whole trees falling and injuring/killing people happens quite often in every country (especially in parks). But a tree falling onto a man crossing the Sahara desert? Now that's more of a "are you sh*tting me fact". Nevertheless, I generally liked this book.

And btw, I read chapter 5 real quick while holding the nearest cup just in case of a puke emergency. I know some weird Asian meals but here i found so much more "how the f are you eating this" on a worldwide level. I mean really? Unless it's famine related how do you come up with some of this "recipes"?

Advice- While I don't know if the book is targeted mainly for the American market, I'd suggest that an edition can be made with all the units in the non-American scale - meters, kilograms, mph, Celsium etc. For the non-Americans the impact of the facts is much stronger when you actually understand the units and don't have to google convert it every time :)

[Catherine Leist · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s an interesting book with interesting facts. Will I remember most of these facts later? Probably not. I just didn’t like the extra commentary the author put throughout the book. The jokes fell flat for me, and were borderline insensitive at times, so I’d keep that in mind if you want to read this book.

[David M. Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

More reasons for not sleeping well at night.

I have memories of some of the events in this book and regrets for hearing some of the things I won't be able to get out of my mind now. It's almost a good thing that there's so many crappy things going on these days to try and keep my mind off them.

[Janet Eshenroder · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nope. Haven’t finished it. Glad it was BookBub and I didn’t pay much.

I can suggest it as a bathroom book. Filled with strange and bizarre news stories. Probably more entertaining if you want to grab and read a few at a time. I only got though a few pages in one sitting before I started searching for a different book.

Will give the author kudos for the name of the book. That hooked me in.

[Junemarie Brandt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fact checking isn’t hard. But apparently beyond the skill or interest of some writers. This is what you end up reading when your luggage is lost and you’re camping out in the bedroom of your 16 year old nephew.

[Kristen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm considering this book read even though I only made it 30% through the book. I found fact number 390 about Stella Walsh to be entirely unnecessary, it did not provide enough details about the situation, and was very problematic towards gender and gender identity.

[Matthew · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this book would be fun and, on a few occasions, it was. More often I found it childish, boring and inaccurate. None of the facts were actually very scary. Many were common knowledge. Many, especially those related to History, were actually wrong.

[MaryAnn Lockey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is not going to captivate you. Not sure it is meant to. Fun facts to share as conversation starter, some a little shady and only could be cited as fact because of the way they were worded. I did enjoy some of his personal comments.

[Kyisha Walter · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am a fan of fact books but this book did not do it for me. Not many interesting facts and often not stated with correct context. Also ripe with misogyny that only reminded me this book was not written with my demographic in mind.

[Yahli Rot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative

I like how it's separated to different chapters with a theme. The facts are weird and interesting and the author's notes and jokes made it fun (even though it's supposed to be scary!).

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disturbing, entertaining, and, at times, hilarious facts.

[Monique Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The facts were interesting, although disturbing at times for those who might be squeamish and the author’s commentary felt a bit forced in places. Overall an entertaining read.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was funny in some chapters and gross in others. But I loved the book.

[Melinda Fulford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting

[Crystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining… the last chapter scared the shit out of me though.

[The Kawaii Slartibartfast · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wouldn't say anything in this book was really scary but an interesting amount of people from things that shouldn't have been falling from the sky.

[Nathan Hoyt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and sometimes gross. But what do you expect?

[Bill Melater · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting facts. Really makes you look down on humanity. Could have down without the authors remarks.

[Miss Ryoko · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I like reading short little snippet facts like this. Information without a disertation is what I like ;-)

Some of the sections in here were funny, some made me cringe (mostly the torture section... and the food around the world section... ew), and some sections were very intersting.

If you like reading information that isn't too full of excessive words and jargon (and you like your info with a dash of humor), check this book out. You'll have a few good laughs and gain some education ;-)

[Daniel A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Cary McNeal's first book in this series, 1,001 Facts That Will Scare the S#*t Out of You, a fair amount of time ago, and for the most part, that book did contain more-or-less disturbing trivia; a mere mention of the candiru, however apocryphal the stories of its parasitism may be, is enough to give most men (and I do mean males) pause. However, Are You Sh*tting Me?: 1,004 Facts That Will Scare the Sh*t Out of You, already the third book in the series, is something of a misnomer along these lines: While Are You Sh*tting Me? may be reasonably good trivia, the contents are hardly anywhere near as disturbing as the first or second book. And as far as trivia goes, I've honestly seen better—or at least more effective—trivia books than this one. Yes, a good many of the facts are useful, at least to impress people at parties, but really, the . . . crassness of much of the book rather dampens that possibility; at least in 1,001 Facts That Will Scare the S#*t Out of You the bits of trivia were so outrageous that repeating them at parties had an entirely different effect, equally useful but markedly different. And ultimately, if it's not exactly a death knell for a trivia book of this type, it's certainly a huge demerit.

[Adam Bogert · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of interesting material here, demonstrating an impressive amount of research. The quality of the trivia is routinely undermined by the often banal commentary or side jokes. McNeal has won Emmys for his television writing; perhaps this book would've benefited from the vetting of a writer's room.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many things that can kill us....fun read tho

[Camille Danciu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long. Lots of facts just simply listed. I learned a little. Could’ve chosen a different format if they’d be this straight forward and no interaction.

[Jeannie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever wondered what kinds of truly heinous crimes occur in the official toilet of the United States? (No, not New Jersey, Florida!) In a land where you can murder a teenager for wearing black (and being Black), there's not much that is sacred, that's for sure. Welcome to Florida: where the average age of a citizen is 490; you can murder your child or your neighbor; and voting is guaranteed to go tits up, at least when the Republicans are involved. And so begins "1,004 Facts To Scare The Shit Out of You", the latest in Cary McNeil's series of amusing, trivia-filled anthologies of factual crap. Dive right in and find out about alien abductions, Chupacabras and Bigfoots, stupid criminals, gross eats across the world (traditional Icelandic food, anyone?), ancient medical and torture practices and a veritable plethora of more 'scary' shiznit.

[Dalton Lebleu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very funny list of trivial stuff about our world that will scare you along with the author's narrative about most of them. *caution*-it is a vulgar book, but the title suggests that. If you enjoy tasteless humor and an easy read, this is the book for you. It would make an excellent book to keep next to the commode.